This is such an important subject area; one that middle school students will be able to appreciate through their own experiences and direct observation. We at the NAE Center for Engineering Ethics and Society (CEES) are looking at the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean through the lens of ethics. It might be interesting to ask your students who they believe has ethical responsibility for "developing solutions for negative impacts of plastics on the environment," and why? Also, who they hold as ethically responsible for "the problem," as they come to define it.